Such adorable babies... - Bash

They so are. I would keep them all if I could! - Rachel Lea Fox

I empathize. I love getting the opportunity to have all this kitten time - never been around a kitten this young before - but I hate the part where he goes to live with someone else. OKP is now promoting him on Facebook and I've had a few people express interest. We are all going to miss the little guy over here... - Corinne L

It never gets easier to give them up Corinne. These kittens bring us to 45 kittens we have fostered in the last 6ish years. I love every single one of them. There are some I am more attached to than others, and there are some I still think back on longingly, wishing I could still have them in my life. But some I get to keep knowing through friends and I get updates, and then I get another set of kittens and I get to love a whole new batch. It is worth the heart ache, but that doesn't make it any easier. :( - Rachel Lea Fox

I hope to do this in the future Rachel. But I'd also like to do wildlife rescue and raise a Guide Dog puppy and I don't think it would be a good idea to do all three at once, lol. - Headless Gnad Kicker

Please tell me this is a no kill shelter.... - Soup in a TARDIS

Tardis, there are no scenarios where my kittens will be being put to sleep. My shelter is better than a no kill shelter. I will explain the myths behind no kill shelters later and why this model is better. Right now I have to finish the bios and take the kittens in. - Rachel Lea Fox

Looking forward to it. - Soup in a TARDIS

The main problem with No Kill Shelters or No Kill animal services is that they don't take in animals that they don't feel they can get adopted out within X amount of time where X is usually a good deal under a year. Don't get me wrong, they are doing great work with the animals that they do take in and the more people willing to care for stray and abandoned animals the better, but the animals that are harder to work with and who take longer are turned away. The model at Humane Society of Silicon Valley (which is not every Humane Society's model) is not a No Kill model, it is more of a "only if we really really have to model". This is a little hard to explain which makes it hard to be known about but this is basically how it works. EVERY animal is taken in if they can find any space at all for them. However they have certain channels of how they take them in (only one city contract - Sunnyvale - but they work with other shelters like San Jose - which is a Kill Shelter - and take as many animals out of that system as possible. <Continued in next comment> - Rachel Lea Fox

The medical department is the only one that can choose to put an animal to sleep without committee oversite and only severe medical conditions where the quality of life of the animal would not be good warrant this action. These are incredibly good people that try to save all the animals they can, but sometimes there is only so much you can do. It is the animals with certain difficult medical issues or behavior issues who get put down in most shelters because they take too long to find a family for that are at most risk at most shelters and with these animals is where this model gets interesting. <Continued next> - Rachel Lea Fox

So for instance an cat with Feline Leukemia is a very difficult situation. Many animals can live very long happy lives with this disease before it actually sets in fully and the medical issues become severe. Some cats can live a good 14 years with this disease in early stages that have no effect on the animal. Once a cat starts to show symptoms it can be months or even up to 3 years before they pass away. However Feline Leukemia is incredibly contagious even in it's early stages. A cat with this disease has to kept away from all other uninfected cats, can not go outside and needs to be closely monitored. In most shelters these animals are put to sleep. A No Kill shelter would not accept these cats. HSSV takes them and looks for the right home for them. They will care for them themselves for several years while they look for that right home. There is a point where they will have to give up on this animal however they have a much better chance here than anywhere else. <continued in next comment> - Rachel Lea Fox

As far as behavioral issues, this is another area where they work with the animals rather than just putting down the animal. They have employees trained in dealing with difficult behavior in animals and they train volunteers to work with them. The animals are ranked so that volunteers know which animals they can work with based on their current level of training. The goal is to try and reduce the behavioral issues while looking for the right home for these animals. With animals that have severe behavioral issues who aren't responding to training they start to look for other options and other reasons. Here is an example: A cat came in with severe behavioral issues. She did not want to be touched, she lashed out and scratched and bit at the smallest things. She cowered in corners and was generally an unhappy cat. Techniques were not working on her at all. So the medical department sedated her and looked her over completely. It turns out she had a severe infection behind her eye that was incredibly painful but didn't show any outward signs. The issue was so severe they actually had to remove her eye to deal with it, and so they did. When the pain was gone and this kitty woke up she was suddenly a much nicer cat. With some training and help she became a very happy lap cat who found a good home. In the vast majority of shelters we never would have found this out, she never would have had a chance. And No Kill shelters would not have been equipped to deal with her and she would have been turned away. <continued in next comment> - Rachel Lea Fox

There are some circumstances however where the odds are just not in the favor of the animal. An easy example is the cat with Feline Leukemia who also has some pretty difficult behavioral issues. This makes it almost impossible to find an home for this cat (or dog in similar situation). Each of those on it's own is hard enough to find a home, but they do it, together it just isn't going to work, and in this case the animal would likely be put to sleep. However this is how the decision is made. Any animal who is in a situation where they have to consider putting him/her to sleep will be reviewed by a committee. The committee is comprised of 7 people and there has to be a consensus of 5 of them for that action to pass. I don't envy the decisions of this committee. HSSV takes in thousands of animals a year and while they find homes for so so many of them I know that many situations do have to go before this panel. But with more than just one person making this decision, with some having experience in the medical end and some in behavioral and some in the community and adoption, you know they are looking at all the angles and what the odds are and of course they also have to look at how the money is spent and how many other animals they can help in some situations. But the first question is always the quality of life of the animal and the ability to find that animal a home. - Rachel Lea Fox

Basically they have the facilities and the system set up to help more animals than most shelters can. And they take the decision to put an animal to sleep seriously, it is the last option. However it is a needed option because without that option they can't take in the medical cases where you might run into a situation where the most humane thing is to put the animal to sleep. In order to take the harder cases you also have to be able to decide where to draw the line. Fortunately that line is very high giving so many animals a chance who wouldn't otherwise have a chance. Tardis or anyone else, let me know if you have any questions. Believe me, this is all stuff I had never thought about or had any clue about before diving in deeper into this world. There was a time when I thought I was going to no choice but to give up a beloved pet and I too was looking for a No Kill shelter. Now, if the situation was such that I had no choice, I would choose to take my animal to the Humane Society of Silicon Valley if that was an option at all. :) - Rachel Lea Fox

Wow, thank you for all the information. - Soup in a TARDIS

I think those kinds of shelters are definitely preferable, but I am not anti-Kill Shelters myself. It is unfortunate that they need to exist at all, but with limited funds and space, and people continually refusing to desex their pets, breeding the crap out of them, dumping them etc etc, there is often simply no other option. - Headless Gnad Kicker

I'm not anti any shelter. Like I said at the beginning I think No Kill shelters are fine and absolutely any group willing to put work into saving animals and getting them spayed and neutered and finding them good homes needs to keep working. What I do think is that "No Kill" is too easy a term to latch onto. It's a buzz word which doesn't always mean what people think it means since hard cases are usually turned away. I wish that more shelters could move to a model like HSSV which would be "minimal kill" I guess if you want to give it a term. I think all three kinds of shelters need to exist in the current situation that we have. But I support and endorse the HSSV model. - Rachel Lea Fox

Depressing statistic, in San Jose CA which has a population of just shy of a million people, 7 out of 10 stray KITTENS are killed. Kittens are the easiest to find homes for and yet the population of kittens is so huge in this area that this is what is happening. This is why we need to spay and neuter our pets. This is why we need to trap and release current stray cats who wouldn't do well coming into a home scenario. And education needs to be higher about the problem. 7 out of 10 is just a horrible statistic. :( - Rachel Lea Fox

Thanks for the wealth of info, Rachel. The San Jose stat is so very sad. - Corinne L